Can I insult it to death?
If it's bad taste to offer a serious answer, I apologise. But my serious answer is "No, you can't insult a green slime to death. But you can kill a green slime by viciously mocking the demon lord of slimes and all his work, including this particular green slime on the dungeon roof in front of you."
What I've learned in the past 40 pages:
I'm playing chess, and my opponent complains that knights don't move in L-shapes, that it's totally unrealistic. Do I say:
1) "This is an abstract game, I don't imagine a knight moving in L-shapes, because it's not a real or imaginary knight, it's a game piece"
2) "Obviously, the knight trots the horse forward a few paces and then pulls hard on the reins to turn the horse right or left"
I hope that if we can agree on anything, it's that #1 is essentially the correct answer for chess.
Agreed on chess.
But let's say that two boys are playing chess and both are imagining a duel. Boy A imagines a story that fit the rules -- L-obsessed knights and walking castles and queens who are faster and mobile than fat slow kings. Boy B sees that as kooky and bending over backwards, and wants rules (by default or by flexibility) that are consistent with more "realistic" stories.
To me, with bards insulting skeletons to death, I really thought I had finally found the 'Aha!' riposte to make my case once and for all. Nevertheless, others clearly enjoy the challenge of coloring inside the lines provided.
So what I've learned is that arguing about what is "realistic" in the fiction is to always be talking past each other. Decide first if D&D rules should nod to realism or D&D fiction must nod to the rules or a compromise of sorts. The rest will follow more naturally. (And I won't need any more analogies).
And here I think you've isolated the point of controversy.
Most of my replies are old hat - for which I apologise, but this whole discussion seems to a significant extent to be a rerun of past ones.
First, the phrase "fiction nods to rules" - which Raven Crowking and BryonD have both used in the past - I find unhelpful. All versions of D&D involved rules which shape the fiction - for example, in Basic D&D and 1st ed AD&D, PC clerics never use swords or spears.
More importantly, I find the analogy between the chess story, and 4e, completely unhelpful. Perhaps if a D&D campaign involved
no action except for a solitary bard fighting only skeletons and oozes, than the analogy might get some purchases. Perhaps the story might come to seem contrived - although personally I would still want a bit more of an account of what the story involves. Some surprisingly interesting stories can be built out of contrived elements.
But in fact the campaign will involved much more action than that - more PCs, more variation in foes, etc, etc. It's like Come and Get It and the wizard who is wrongfooted, or zigs when he should have zagged, or turns back just at the wrong moment - a campaign of this and nothing else might seem contrived, but in fact it is likely to be a one-off event.
At which point, the case you seem to be making becomes something like an "in principle" case - along the lines of "A group of 4e players who play nothing but bards using Vicious Mockery to fight slimes and skeletons will end up having to tell a contrived fiction". And even if that is true, it tells us basically nothing about any actual 4e campaign, any actual episode of 4e play.
As I posted way upthread (I think it was in this thread), no D&D game played by the rules will start with one of the PCs being a prince of tremedous wealth. This is not because there are no worthy stories to be told about such a protagonist; it is a metagame contrivance ("fiction following the rules"). But it is a balance-generated burden on storytelling that we've coped with for over 30 years. If
every D&D campaign started with the PCs as nobles at court, but all needing some story to tell about why they had no great wealth, and all being unable to obtain wealth except by killing monsters in dungeons, the contrivance might be a harder one to cope with - but I've never heard of such a campaign being run. It's like the single bard vs slimes and skeletons campaign - merely imaginary. Or, rather, any group which did choose to run it would work out among themsevles how to elminate or adequately cope with the contrivance, such that the game would run fine for them. In which case, what's the problem?
I said that I wanted a game that explains the mechanics, including minor bits that aren't as likely to come up very often.
I know I'm not looking for another 3e or 3.5 remake from WOTC. I'm looking for 5e to a game which isn't 4e, but isn't 3e either. I want it to be the next step, hopefully its one that steps toward something more "realistic" and "simulationist" and less "gamist".
Nothing wrong with any of this. A question - do you play games like Runequest, Rolemaster, Chivalry and Sorcery, GURPS or HERO? They already go a lot further than 3E along the "realism" path.
In Tolkien, as with other games, variations, alternate histories, etc. It is set ON EARTH and assumed to have the same basic principles of the real world, except magic works.
<snip>
I want a game where physics aren't "4e universe" but instead "our universe"-adjacent including magic.
As was already mentioned upthread, there are biolgoical anomilies here, like flying dragons and non-feeble giants. Are these magic, or non-magical depatures from the physics of our universe?
And in Tolkien there are economic anomolies. The Shire, an essentially autarkic community, has a material standard of living comparable to early industrial England, which was a centre of world trade and production. Is this magic, or a non-magical departure from the sociology of our universe?
lets assume that the DM bought the system expecting 4e to actually adjudicate information, not just to give them ability blocks to distribute like crackers. Next let's assume that player 1 thinks that the ability shouldn't hit skeletons, and player 2 disagrees. As with any version of DnD, they turn to the DM. The DM scratches their head and realize they don't have an logical explanation either way and turns to the book. The book doesn't know either. How perplexing, darned book should have had the answer. DM makes a call and one player is angry. Both players decide to play in other games. In other games the DM (a new one or different one) comes up with a completely different interpretation and the game continues. Now I'm not saying that the DMs are wrong in either case, nor am I saying that they shouldn't come up with answers, NOR am I saying they should be bound by the rules. I AM saying that the rules should be there to give clarification and answers so that the DM doesn't have to come up with things all on their own every single time. (By clarification I mean more info than "Say Yes".)
Games can break up over any number of things - poor GMing, crappy adventures, TPKs due to swingy combat mechanics, etc, etc. Is there any evidence that 4e is more prone to breaking up games than other systems?
most arguments about reskinning/recolouring/reflavouring seems to assume that the rules just outright allow it. Where as most of these interpretations aren't supported by the actual text given in the actual spell.
I think most people talking about "reskinning" have in mind page 55 of the 4e PHB:
A power’s flavor text helps you understand what happens when you use a power and how you might describe it when you use it. You can alter this description as you like, to fit your own idea of what your power looks like.
